Are These the Only Visible Things Women Do?

This was supposed to be funny. I find it offensive to be honest. So, we never meet any of our friends, we only spend time on the phone. We never go out, see a movie, read a book or anything like that. And of course, all women in this universe are housewives. And have no children, cause I see not picking them from school or going to see the teacher.
Oh, and this women - clock is so accurate, it completely overlooks another cliche: the enormous amount of time women spend shopping. Anyway, it did get me a bit pissed off.

Should Aunt Irma Stop Visiting?

I thought of bringing a story published by New York Times to your attention. First, here are some (quite a few) excerpts from the article:

For many women, a birth control pill that eliminates monthly menstruation might seem a welcome milestone.

But others view their periods as fundamental symbols of fertility and health, researchers have found. Rather than loathing their periods, women evidently carry on complex love-hate relationships with them.

The Food and Drug Administration agency is expected to approve the first contraceptive pill that is designed to eliminate periods as long as a woman takes it.

The drug’s maker, Wyeth, said yesterday that it was expecting F.D.A. approval in May, but has declined to discuss its marketing plans.

The company’s research shows that nearly two-thirds of women it surveyed expressed an interest in giving up their periods. That dovetails with the findings of similar research conducted by Linda C. Andrist, a professor at MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston.

“We don’t want to confront our bodily functions anymore,” Ms. Andrist said. “We’re too busy.” Doctors say they know of no medical reason women taking birth control pills need to have a period. The monthly bleeding that women on pills experience is not a real period, in fact.

Ms. Chesler, who teaches documentary making at the University of California, San Diego, said she became concerned about efforts to eliminate menstruation when she first heard about the idea several years ago.

“Women are not sick,” she said. “They don’t need to control their periods for 30 or 40 years.”

Eliminating menstruation is not a completely new concept. Women who take any kind of oral contraceptive do not have real periods.

Menstrual suppression may be particularly appealing to women who suffer severe pain, heavy bleeding or emotional problems during their periods. A study by Canadian researchers found that women afflicted by heavy menstrual bleeding give up $1,692 a year in lost wages.

Views about menstruation have long been mixed. Some cultures have banished menstruating women to huts or required special baths after periods. Others believed that menstruating women had special powers.

Wyeth's therapeutic director for women’s health, Dr. Ginger D. Constantine, cited company-financed research indicating that women often feel less effective at work and school during their periods. They limit sexual activity and exercise, wear dark clothes and stay home more, resulting in absenteeism, she said.

I must say I have no idea what I would choose, given the option. To be honest, before having it, I went crazy waiting for my period. Other girls around me were already talking about this issue and I felt left out and such a child. I would now said I was way too ignorant of the matter. I got it, I was happy, for about two months. Then I faced the real problems of it: impossible timing, extra care needed, all the ill-feeling sometimes associated with it. I do not have an actual PMS. But I do feel fat and ugly while it lasts.

Now I have to think of complete freedom. If using normal pills leaves me with a fake period, why keep it? Is that what makes me feel like a woman? Far from it... I think I would be more inclined to say yes to such an option, after monitoring the issue for a while (a year or so would be enough to see if any health issues arise).

What would you do in this case?

Barbie Magazine, stairway to eating disorders

People ask themselves why anorexia is becoming a problem in Romania. Well, I guess it has a lot to do with patterns we import from other countries. The most frequently seen are the dozens of women's magazines, containing clothes, makeup and diets and photos of very thin women. But it starts way sooner!

Those of you living in Bucharest have surely seen the Barbie magazine ads. I tried looking up a site of this magazine but failed. Anyway, the ad that always makes me mad is the one displayed at the entrace of the Brancoveanu metro station. It shows a 10 (12 maximum) year old girl, with a complicated hairdo, makeup and a really tight dress. She is trying a sexy look (yes, I am serious) and it simply looks scary to me.

The slogan is "Barbie, your best friend". Is that the friend mothers want for their daughters? A skinny looking doll whose proportions are physically impossible? And who allowed that girl to be photographed like that? Does she not have a mother? Is she not too young to be trapped in the shallowness of how important looks are?

Teenagers are the most common victims of eating disorders. Maybe more of us should thing twice before making models out of our young girls and before buying them such magazines.

My Revolution

This is my first post here, and although the title of it sounds pretentious or lame, that only the whole story will reveal.
I want to talk about how it is like to come out of your shell sometimes, even though, weirdly enough, you are far from being shy. It needs some courage and a bit of spark, at the right moment. I had this spark today, therefore, I made my revolution, thank you to my sweetest friend Alina, who taught me that "you are the one in charge when it comes to what you feel". But hey, what am I talking about here, you might all wonder by now, if you haven't rolled your eyes already. :)

I am asking you, how do you feel when you are nice and the nicer you get, the uglier people behave around you, just like a downward spiral with a bad end. Oh well, I have this "friend" or better said, acquaintance, and she always felt the need to attack me somehow, when it comes to my skills, to my appearance, to anything else under the sun. You know.... with those silly remarks you can hardly have an intelligent answer for, go figure.
Today, I told her what I feel about something she wanted to be praised for, I told her the truth, that it was crappy, in short, I felt I am fed up to be nice and show her only the good side when there was hardly any of it, I was harsh and critique. She took it badly and her arguments were so poor that it made me wonder, why do I wanna be "friends" with someone I feel no connection with, instead I am trying to make a connection by giving but not receiving. I had this smirk on my face, of coming out as my true self and tell people the truth as they deserve it, just like I tell it to myself, so too many times.

She is not important for me, I am not important for her, I am sure we have already replaced each other by now, she, with a moaning about my behavior, me, with this wonderful blog I can pour my silly thoughts into. And, I smile to this screen, I feel that after few years of trying to be nice I can almost be mean with those who deserve it, I feel the days in which I go in a corner to feel bad as I didn't have the right answer to an attack, are slowly going away....
It is like you face bullying more or less, I was too blind to see it, until ....today. Some of you might ask, was that woman deserving your bluntness? Oh, yeah, my answer would be, as I made my revolution today, and I started with the right person.

ps:
Thank you Alina and each one of you I know very little yet, for giving me a peice of your blog, to share my world with you. :)

New Girl in the Club

Important notice!!!
GBC has the great pleasure of presenting its newest member, Beatrice. Besides blogging fervently from now on, she also designs great logos. You can see a link to her own company on our sidebar.
Let's all welcome her and wish her a pleasant stay at GBC!

Simply Unacceptable!

We all worry about a little unwanted comment-spam, we complain about blog stalkers that criticize everything we read, write or do. That kind of comes with blogging and can be ignored and handled quite successfully. But what happens when there is no limit? When you are treated like a mere object and you receive death threats as comments or emails? A post on Dio's Quasi Fictional brought this problem to my attention.

A female blogger, very successful one might I add, is experiencing all these. Go to her blog for more details on how such a situation affects the victim. Because in this case she actually is a victim, nothing less. It is not just some text, it is still a threat and should be treated exactly as an old school letter.

I feel rage, disgust, but helplessness is the dominant sensation. I would like to help, and there is now way for me to do that. Therefore, I can only show my support. I can actually say I understand how it feels, but only to some extent. I've had a knife held to my neck, but only for a few minutes. I have no idea how I'd handle such a prolonged experience. I think she is doing great in this situation.

Boring Stuff for Boys

Brain dead tv. The television programmes you can turn off your brain and just watch, no thinking required.

My favourite type of brain dead tv is the music channels. I'm not so bad now, but in my student days I could watch these for hours.

Although, if I'm honest, working life isn't the only reason I watch these channels less now.

The truth is, I find a lot of music videos unbearable to watch. They've gone from having pretty girls dancing, to having pretty girls looking and acting like porn stars. Fly girls are now "video ho's". Inventivness has been lost to the desire to make every single promo video look like soft porn, with the boundaries being pushed back further and further.

A graphic example is the plethora of "knicker shots", where the model is wearing tiny knickers and showing as much flesh as possible. Or they'll just set the video in a lap dancing club.

I find these videos not just offensive and demeaning to women, but boring. These videos are a wave of erstaz sexuality aimed at the "lad" demographic. Why should I watch them, when they so blatantly aren't made for me or other any women.

Music videos used to be (and sometimes still are, check out the works of Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze or Sophie Muller) an inventive marriage of sound and vision. One of my earliest childhood memories is watching Michael Jackson's Billie Jean video, seeing the paving stones light up and thinking it was the coolest thing ever.

I want that sort of imaginative visual back, rather then this continued slide into sleaze.

Something like this:

Fun for the Girls

A woman is incomplete until she is married. Then she is finished.

As my friend Ryan noted, the same theory may prove true for men as well.

Different perspectives

Have you noticed that when saying something really naughty, almost dirty, a boy and a girl are looked at differently? If a few girls are walking and making comments (not always innocent) on boys they see, they are always regarded as evil doers, unlike boys doing the very same.

Why is that? We can all have such playful, hunter feelings. No one imagines women are blind, deaf and always obsessing on one man alone. As long as they don't say it, it is all very appropriate. Thinking it does not matter, just keep it to yourself. That is so wrong though.

As far as I can tell, being in love, in a relationship, and committed to your feelings and your relationship does not mean you will never have opinions on the opposite sex. It does not mean anyone else is purely non-attractive to you. It only means you are genuinely not interested. You make a choice (you commit to a person) and stick with that choice.

And if you are not in a relationship, not seeing someone and definitely looking, well than you have the same opinions on the opposite sex. A man would seem attractive or not in both circumstances, only that you may choose to take an interest. Or not. For your own reasons.

If when seeing someone you smile and you have that "I am definitely into you" look and also dare to say something about it to your friends and you also happen to be in a public place, you'd better not be a woman! Cause people will definitely look down on you! If you only think it, that's just ok!

If you feel like going a little over the line when talking to your friends, then again, make sure you are behind closed doors or that you are a man. Otherwise, you can have results ranging from people in complete shock, not being able to continue whatever they were previously doing, to serious accidents. And the look, the "You are so going to burn in hell look", well, I just love that!

So here is how I see it: there should not be any difference in judging what people (as in men and women alike) are thinking and saying. It is just the same. Keeping it to yourself or to close friends will not make you better. The difference is between thinking of something and doing it. That's all!

Death by Starvation

The EVZ daily paper has published a story on anorexia today. It presents a few facts about the victims the disease has made in Romania, the reasons to get sick, psychological aspects and a few statistics.

Romania has been kept safe from this disease up to know, but in the past few years, the cases of anorexia have become more and more common. Experts say refusing to eat will become a public health problem in the next 5 or 6 years.

Anorexia is frequent among women aged 13 to 20, and it is encountered in men also, very rarely. Relationships of mothers with their children, school mates and promoted standards (mostly by the fashion industry) are a few of the reasons this frightening disease exists. Other than teenage girls, people depending on their image for a living (models, ballerinas, actresses etc) and old people who have lost their will to live can also be affected by it.

Similar to the case of bulimia, medical treatment is almost impossible for those suffering from anorexia. An entire board of doctors (including a psychologist and a psychiatrist) is needed to treat such a patient. The disease can only be treated within hospitals, as people suffering from anorexia also become suicidal.

There are no relevant statistics regarding this disease in Romania, nor for bulimia. The reason? They have recently started to be considered an issue requiring such attention.

Story in Romanian and a summary in English.

The part of this story that made me really angry was the interview with the owner of the largest modeling company in Romania, also published by EVZ. He denies the fact that models and the fashion industry have any impact on or responsibility towards those suffering from anorexia.

He states normal models, not skinny and fitting some impossible standards, would make fat people contempt with themselves. Yes, in some cases, being fat is a problem; it can lead to severe illnesses. Other than that, not being perfectly slim is really nooo problem.

And besides, if anyone wants to loose weight, they should go exercise, eat healthy and generally lead a healthy life. Starving yourself to death will bring you just that: death. No beauty in turning into dust, is there?

How’s the situation in other countries? Do you have any relevant data to share?

What is a photo?

I am rediscovering the power of photos these days. Nothing attracts better your visitors' attention than a photo. I have to admit I have published photos quite often. They help making a story more expressive and yes, they do tend to catch the readers' eyes.

Personal photos, portraits especially, have an even greater power. I have posted a few photos of myself on my own blog several days ago. Well, it's been the third day in a row when they have been most popular links. I would like new visitors to be attracted by my blog's content, but it seems my photos do a better job.

George said once that posting a girl photo on my profile had a lot to do with new visitors. He was right, after that, I had a lot more profile views.

For the new photos, if I exclude friends who commented as they had not seen me in my new look, I am still left with way too many clicks directed to those photos.

Why is that? Why do new posts remain without comments although they bring quite interesting or important news or talk about a movie or a book or other experiences, while those photos are still commented on? Are we all so tributary to physical appearance? Does it feel the same for male photos? From George's comments, I understood it doesn't.

Anyway, this was a good exercise. My decision, not to post any other photos soon.

Fun for the Girls

Enjoy!

The New Girl in the Club

Ladies and Gentlemen!!!!!!!

The Girl's Blogosphere Club is proud to introduce its new member:

Om Luji!

You are hereby invited to keep an eye on her work, both here and on her own blog.

Welcome.

Is the Eternal Feminine at Bay?

Yesterday I came across another online magazine for women. I browsed to it, as I usually do with such magazines, and then I never return. Unless I am really bored and there is nothing else to do.

Their attitude does annoy me. Even if they are aimed at career women, the attitude is a bit wrong. They still promote diets. None focuses more on careers, on experiences, on real accounts on everything. They still all make a purpose of discovering what’s behind the masculine mind. Well I don’t care about that when reading such a magazine. I want to read about women. How they handle stuff. Not a psychologist’s opinion on how men think.

Anyway, back to the respective magazine. I loved the slogan: for women who successfully combine their career and family life. Great! I need some advice on that. Then I saw the sections. Career is fourth, after Home, Family and Beauty??? And the square in front of it has the ugliest, least attractive colors of all: a gray of some sort.

Then I read this article in the Lifestyle section. About successful business women in a man’s world. OK, enough of that. I am tired of people talking about how women become more and more like men when they handle important affairs. How the eternal feminine might be lost on the way to prove their independence, their leadership abilities etc.

Just because women want to do what men do does not mean they won’t bring in their own style. Yes, they might experience lack of time and everything, but as Cris said at a certain point, they still have similar issues when it comes to relationships and life in general. They won’t turn into copies of men in their field. Not all of them anyway. Some might!

So maybe a HowTo on how to stay a woman when doing a man’s job? That would be an interesting subject for me. Or maybe an extensive article about day care (or the lack of it) in Romanian companies? Or more statistics or employed women vs housewives. Or women’s salaries vs men’s salaries. Or Queen Bees in Romania. Do they exist? Single women and single mothers. How to handle all life’s responsibility on your own when clearly the stay at home option is not available? Maybe we should focus on that more and less on pathological fights within a relationship.

Tags: Women, Career Women, Family, Lifestyle, Garbo, Women's Magazines, Journalism

Women- powerful or not?

Today I read many silly articles for women, you know the kind: advice for your relationship, how to meet the perfect man, how to have passionate sex and so on. I know some impressive career women who despite their position, financial status, power, when they meet a man they like, they lose their mind and emotions go wild. From this moment on they become like any other women, maybe even more emotional and needy. They start having some serious security issues. They need their men to hold them, rub them and tell them how special they are for providing them moral, mental and emotional support.

Read more on Visiosphere's "Women- powerful or not?"

Fun: Women vs Men Praying

WOMAN'S POEM:
“Before I lay me down to sleep/
I pray for a man, who's not a creep,/
One who's handsome, smart and strong.
One who loves to listen long,/
One who thinks before he speaks,/
One who'll call, not wait for weeks.
I pray he's gainfully employed,/
When I spend his cash, won't be annoyed.
Pulls out my chair and opens my door,/
Massages my back and begs to do more./
Oh! Send me a man who'll make love to my mind,
Knows what to answer to "how big is my behind?"/
I pray that this man will love me to no end,
And always be my very best friend.”

MAN'S POEM:
“ I pray for a deaf-mute nymphomaniac with huge boobs who owns a liquor store and a golf course. This doesn't rhyme and I don't give a shit.”

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids
each for six weeks.

Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.

There is no fast food.

Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean,
correct all homework, complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and
pay a list of "pretend" bills with not enough money.

In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each
week.


Rest of the details found here...

US - 51% of Women Are Living Without Spouse

"For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results.

In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000.

Coupled with the fact that in 2005 married couples became a minority of all American households for the first time, the trend could ultimately shape social and workplace policies, including the ways government and employers distribute benefits.

Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods. At the other end, women are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom.

In addition, marriage rates among black women remain low. Only about 30 percent of black women are living with a spouse, according to the Census Bureau, compared with about 49 percent of Hispanic women, 55 percent of non-Hispanic white women and more than 60 percent of Asian women."

Whole story here.

This is one of those pieces of news that does not surprise me at all. Why? My way of thinking I guess. In a recent conversation with a friend we were discussing how our perceptions of marriage and the right age for having a family have changed over the years.

"A few years ago, I thought that if I were not settled down by the time I turned 30, it would be a complete tragedy", she said. "Now I changed that age to 40 and it feel right." That is how I see it. Until 3o, you have time to complete your education, date enough to know yourself and your tastes, have time to dedicate to building a career and whatever else one need on an individual level. Afterwards, it's time for a relationship, not marriage necessarily, and children.

Being the child of divorced parents, I somehow came to think marriage as a mere paper. It's not the legal bond that holds a couple together. A relationship can last or not regardless of the social and legal aspect that marriage implies.

How do you feel about this percentage, about marriage in general and the basis of a family? Does anyone know of similar surveys from other countries?

Tags: women, marriage, lifestyle, family

Office queen bees hold back women's carrers

FORGET “jobs for the boys”. Women bosses are significantly more likely than men to discriminate against female employees, research has suggested.

The study found that when presented with applications for promotion, women were more likely than men to assess the female candidate as less qualified than the male one.

They were also prone to mark down women’s prospects for promotion and to assess them as more controlling than men in their management style.

The findings, based on experiments carried out among more than 700 people, suggest that the “queen bee syndrome” of female rivalry in the workplace may sometimes be as important as sexism in holding back women’s careers. Full story here.

Why is that? Why do you think women would be so keen on holding down other women. Are they seen as bigger threats career wise? Because I seriously doubt they believe male employees always do such a great job!

powered by performancing firefox

Is it so?

Comic from here.